Bold Asian Flavors from Jamaica? Yes! Beef Stir Fry in 30 Minutes

Easy Beef Stir Fry with Fresh Vegetables and Rice Noodles

So, we're all dealing with this threat of COVID-19, but since we're all practicing our social distancing and can't saunter on out to our favorite Asian restaurants, how 'bout we bring the food to our own kitchens? I guarantee that by the time you're done making this dish, you low-key may never order stir fry from anywhere else ever again except from your kitchen! 

Full Disclosure: This dish does have some spicy notes to it, if you have heartburn the recipe can be tinkered with to dial back some of the heat. 

Throughout this recipe I will be noting alternatives that you can use and achieve the same bold flavors. As always, I really want you to have fun making this, and please let me know how it came out or if there is anything additional that you added for extra niceness! This one's for you, Lox!

xoxo Danzii 

Total Prep Time: 60 Minute

Ingredients

1 ½ lbs. of pre-cut flank steak

2 tsp. ginger

3 cloves of garlic 

1 medium onion 

1 medium sweet pepper 

1 tsp of thyme leaves

6 pimento seed crushed

2 stalks of scallion 

1 ½ tsp. chives (optional)

2 medium carrots 

1 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes

½ tsp. garlic powder

2 tsp. cayenne pepper

½ tsp Salt (Optional)

1 tsp. sugar

¼ cup dark soy sauce 

2 tbsp. hoisin sauce 

⅛ cup pineapple juice 

1 cup of chopped bok choy

½ crown of chopped broccoli 

½ cup of snap peas

250g of rice noodles 

3 cups water

1 tbsp. flour

2 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil or sesame oil 

The Stir Fry

• In a large bowl, add flank steak and rinse with vinegar/lime and water then drain excess water. (Yes, we wash our meat in these parts). 
• Chop ginger, garlic, chives and scallion and separate in half. In the bowl add one half of the chopped seasoning to the flank steak. Add half the amount of the soy sauce to bowl, followed by grounded pimento seeds, garlic powder and cayenne pepper, mix well and let that marinate for at least 30 minutes. Important: Dark soy sauce typically has a high sodium content, so I wouldn't recommend adding any salt to this mixture.
• Chop carrots finely length wise or diagonally. Once finished, wash and chop bok choy in medium chunks so you end up with medium stems about 1 inch wide. 
• Wash and separate broccoli florets individually, then wash snap peas and remove the ends. 
• Chop onions and sweet pepper so that you end up with half inch pieces of each.
• In a large skillet or wok over high heat, add oil to the pot and allow it to heat up for about 2 minutes. 
• In a large pot add about 2 cups of water (no salt needed) and bring it to a boil. 
• Add carrots and the remaining half of the chopped seasoning except the scallion and allow that to cook out for about 3 minutes. 

 

• Add the steak to the pan and stir well ensuring that ensure that carrots are now skimmed to the side a little and the steak is closer to the center of the pan. Let this cook for about 3-5 minutes.
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• Now it's time for the vegetables. First, add the bok choy because the stems will take a little while to cook through. Stir well! 
• Add the snap peas next and let that cook through for about a minute with the bok choy. Make sure your heat remains high because you want everything to cook quickly so your vegetables can remain crunchy. 
• Add broccoli florets next and let them cook with the rest of the vegetables for about 3 minutes. At this point if you want to sprinkle a little salt on the vegetables as they cook you can, but again, not entirely necessary. 

• While the veggies and the steak cook, reduce the heat under the pan/wok and add the rice noodles to the pot of boiling water and let it boil for 5 minutes then quickly remove it from the heat and strain. 
• In a sauce pan combine, the remaining half of the soy sauce, pineapple juice, crushed pepper flakes, hoisin sauce and sugar and whisk well. Mix a tablespoon of flour and 2 tablespoons of water (cornstarch is a good substitute) pour in the soy sauce mixture and whisk well. Your sauce should be nice and smooth and have a little thickness to it. 
• Combine! Return high heat under the pot. Add rice noodles, then soy sauce mixture and mix everything together until everything in the pan/wok is even coated with the sauce. Add onions, remaining scallion and sweet peppers and mix well. Remove from heat and serve hot. 

  

 

Danzii's Tips

So, there are few tips I wanna just share because stir fry dishes are not written in stone (I think!) and they can be tweaked and some ingredients can be substituted. Here are a few tips and tricks I came up with to help you achieve a great dish regardless of little challenges here or there. 

• In some supermarkets in Jamaica, you'll find what's packaged as "pepper steak". The cut will vary and it may not cook through neither quickly or easily because of how its sliced and sometimes varying parts of the beef are used. If this is what you find, I would recommend that you add the steak along with about a cup of water/stock to a pressure cooker and cook for about 15 minutes. Then add to the pan after veggies have been cooked.  
• Don't like beef? You can use chicken breast! Just slice them thinly and rather than adding the meat before the veggies, cook the veggies first and add the meat afterwards because of how high the flame will be and how quickly chicken breast loses moisture.  
• Don't like or can't find rice noodles? Egg noddles work fine too. 
• Why do I cook carrots first? Well, it's an old hack my dad taught me. "You don't want your carrots being too soft, but you also don't want them being under-cooked," he explained, so that's just how we do. 
• This recipe used a different method of cooking rice noodles, and this is my personal preference. But this doesn't mean you have to. You can boil the water, add the noodles then drench with cold water if you wanna remain traditional.
• Light soy sauce can also be used, and sometimes put you in a better position to salt your dish to your liking so you may use that as well and add the amount of salt you want as you go along.
• No sesame or olive oil? No worries, regular vegetable oil in cupboard can work.

So, we're all stuck at home because healthcare workers go to work for us, and yeah it's a little boring because we've probably binged every series on Netflix by now and opened Twitter and Instagram a thousand times. But we're not all out options, let's cook together, stay sane and weather this storm. And even after this passes, let's continue to cook together. From my kitchen to yours, "Bone Apple Teeth"!